Peralta Canyon
4/23/2023: First, this is an incredible trail! Five stars all the way. The world's flowers were blooming, and you should just go ahead and do the lone tree when you reach the saddle. It’s an easy ½ mile out and back. It was much harder going down for us than going up. Hiking downhill over 3 miles of watermelon-, basketball-, and football-sized rocks strewn throughout the trail is really tiring. For me, at 70, I would put this closer to hard or medium hard at least. But it is worth it! Go early to avoid the heat and take plenty of water.
This is a top-50 hike, especially during the wildflower bloom.
Spectacular Flowers
Marg’s Notes: Up early again to try to beat the heat. Got out a bit earlier & headed to Superstition Wilderness again. This time we continued out a little further. Down a dirt road. There were quite a few people camping along the road. Got to the trailhead of Fremont Saddle about 7:00. After getting ready, we chatted with “Ranger Rick” for about 15 minutes. He was full of info about critters we might see & directions for our hike. It was fairly cool when we started. I wore my rash shirt. It was a gradual climb over granite…from gravel size to quite large. Quite a bit of scrambling over rocks. In shad at first, but then in the sun. pretty warm! Beautiful views. Lots of flowers! We maintained a pace < 1mph! It was not too busy, but we saw quite a few people. At ~ 3 miles we reached the saddle. Great view all around. Our final destination was the Lone Tree. It was ~ ½ mile further. We had been told that the trail was hard to find, but it wasn’t. rod check his downloaded map occasionally to make sure we were on the right track! At the top, we were pretty tired. Had some trail mix, bar & H2O. more pics. 3 guys arrived after we did & we chatted. The hike down was hot & exhausting. Very tired back at the car. Came back & got in the pool. Then took a nap! Total hike was 6.4 miles. Took 6 hrs! Lazy afternoon! 1523 ft. elevation gain!
Drank lots of water!
Veggies & chicken pasta for dinner.
Rod’s Ramblings from the Trail: Started hiking at 7:15. Could have been sooner but we talked for 15 minutes with Ranger Rick who gave us a lot of pointers.
There are lots of camping spots along the road getting here. The road is gravel.
There are a lot of wildflowers. A lot more than where we were yesterday. It could be because this is on a different side of the mountains.
There are tons of places to hike in the Superstition Wilderness. Just look at the map and you'll see trails everywhere.
The trail is rocky in places, and you will be stepping over boulders in the trail, but it is quite manageable. I would certainly recommend boots on this trail, but I recommend boots on all trails. There is a little stream that still has a little bit of water in it although it's been very dry. When you come around a bend with a couple of big rocks, look down and you will see a beautiful little pond.
One of many views
This is an incredible hike. Very peaceful even though it is supposed to have a lot of traffic. There are a lot of cars at the trailhead, but we have yet to see anyone about a half a mile in. The incline is pretty average and nothing difficult so far.
The flowers about a mile in really start popping. Blue, purple, yellow, white, green, all kinds of good stuff
We are not fast hikers. A lot of that is because I stop and take a bunch of pictures. But this trail is one of those trails that if you're not stopping and looking at something every 10 minutes then you're hiking way too fast. Stop and smell, or look at, the proverbial roses. Take a few pics.
We've reached the saddle at about 10:00 and are going on over to Lone Tree. There was only one person at the saddle when we got here and on the little trail off to Lone Tree we've seen no one yet. The flowers up here are just astoundingly beautiful.
It is 10:30 and we are at the lone tree. Walked for 3.1 mi and got an elevation gain at 1,400 feet. But honestly, it really wasn't that hard. We are the only ones up here and it is on a Sunday and there were a lot of cars in the parking lot. We are going to have lunch – if you're going to have lunch then this is a pretty good place to have it – and then head back. It took so long because I stopped and took pictures every 15 feet. I don't expect to take a bunch of pictures on the way back.
We are leaving now at about 10:56 and expect to be back by 12:45. I'm not going to take many pictures
The views from both Fremont saddle and the lone tree are astounding.
Lunch Spot
This is one of those trails where, at least in my opinion, down is harder than up because almost every step down you're stepping over a rock or rocks or so forth and it makes it so it's not easy to just put one foot in front of the other.
A wonderful hike! We finished at 1:15.
People: Ranger Rick: We had a 15 minute conversation with Ranger Rick. He is a volunteer for the area. He told us about some places to look for and told us where to look for tarantulas. Alas, we didn’t see any tarantulas, but it is good to know that they are in the area. He really loved his work.
Had a good conversation with some folks – the only folks that we met at the lone tree – and talked for a good 10 or 15 minutes about hiking and so forth which is always fun. Another good reason to have my website up and running.
Lunch Spot: We had the Lone Tree to ourselves for about 15 minutes or more. We didn’t have lunch because we only brought snacks, but it was a great place to sit and look out over the valley.